FurniTrust was incorporated as a charity in 2004, although the work of the Trust was begun in the late 1980s, largely by two former local councillors, Norman Darby and Bob Aldridge.
The charity received the Queen’s Award For Voluntary Service in 2005.
Our charitable objectives are to relieve need, hardship or distress by providing furniture and other household equipment to persons of limited means resident within the Taunton area at affordable prices, and to keep items reused that would normally end up in landfill.
We achieve this by collecting donations of furniture and electrical items free of charge, and selling these items at low prices to people in need (e.g. those on benefits / low income) we also provide “Essentials Packs” (kitchen & bedding) to customers that are being resettled to new housing by local authorities and/or supported by social services and other local charities.
There is definitely a need for our services. A Social Metrics Commission (SMC) report from September 2018 entitled “A New Measure of Poverty in the UK” recorded that 14.3 million people in the UK (22%) are in poverty, comprising 8.4 million working-age adults, 4.5 million children, and 1.4 million people of pensionable age. 7.7 million people in the UK were found to be in persistent poverty, unable to break the cycle, leading to generational poverty.
According to a Somerset Community Foundation report in 2016, Gross pay in Somerset is 8% lower than the UK average, and 14.1% of children in Somerset are living in poverty. The recent demise of similar projects to ours in Bridgwater and Yeovil has made our resources even more stretched.
In 2018/19 FurniTrust re-homed over 61 tonnes of furniture (excluding electrical items) and kept over 2100 furniture & electrical items out of landfill. We helped over 1200 clients to afford furniture & electrical items and helped 62 new households with bedding & kitchen packs. FurniTrust gifted furniture & electrical items to eight other local charities to help them achieve their goals.
We are part of the national re-use network:
